Repent, For The End of the World is at Hand

Humanity has a new enemy. Its name is MRSA, or Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus

This happened.

So, of course, this happened.

Predictably, nobody's listening to reason.

This is a fairly regular occurrence. A largely benign virus or bacteria kills someone, as diseases are wont to do, and, suddenly, we're in the middle of an epidemic.

Only we're not. The media takes a few tragic stories, combines them with the fact that the infectant is more prevalent than we think (which isn't tough, since the general population spends approximately no time thinking about diseases they haven't heard of), projects an absurd worst case scenario, and then feeds off its own echoes until people realize they aren't dead.

Meanwhile, politicians fall all over themselves to overreact to an issue that is waaaaaaaaaaay outside their area of expertise (if they have one at all). Perhaps it would be more effective just to legislate infection out of existence. If staph becomes criminal, only criminals will have staph.

The fact of the matter is that the real risk of staph infections is to hospital patients and not to the general public. Even if contracted, staph can typically be defeated by a healthy immune system. WebMD says:

"A report issued earlier this month by the CDC (Center for Disease Control)concluded that nearly 19,000 people died from MRSA infections in 2005. Almost all of these deaths occurred among people with weakened immune systems who were being treated or had recently been treated in hospitals or other health care settings, including nursing homes and dialysis centers."

and:

"Health-care-associated MRSA can occur as surgical wound infections, bloodstream infections, and pneumonia. These life-threatening invasive infections are resistant to many, but not all, antibiotics. Roughly 5% of people treated in U.S. hospitals for MRSA died of the infection in 2005, according to a new report from the government's Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality."

and the clincher:

"CDC spokeswoman Nichole Coffin says community-associated skin infections are typically mild in nature. But she adds that in rare cases they can become life-threatening."

So we learn from this that most people infected with the "superbug" have compromised immune systems and are already in the hospital, the natural home of staph infection. Furthermore, this "superbug" is resistant to some antibiotics. Seriously? That's like a cyborg "supersoldier" being resistant to some bullets. Not so impressive.

Now the CDC might not have the same authority to speak on disease as, say, Fox 5's Rosanna Scotto and Ernie Anastos, but hopefully its assessment will help calm society's frayed nerves.

Rather than get worked up needlessly, we should listen to experts like the CDC, the Department of Health and physicians, not uninformed school parents, or those with an agenda that has nothing to do with public health.

I officially declare this outbreak over. And stupid.